Simple Questions and Short Answers

[jdround]

Why does the small pump require electricity now that, as of 0.15, it only requires an engine and not an electric engine?

[Wakaba-chan]

Real world power generation can be broken into base, load-following and renewable. With this nuclear behavior the devs have now given us all three types - nuclear = base, Coal/Steam = load following and solar = renewable. To me this is ideal, the nuclear isn't a drop-in replacement for an existing power generator - it complements them thus expanding the game rather than just superseding.

Thank you for this idea! Such classification really make sense.
But does it really going work like real world reactors? Doesn't control rods make fuel to decay slowly? I mean, control rods are the things that controlling heating process of fuel rods -> making reaction slower -> making fuel to decay slower. Am I wrong somewhere? (I really don't know much about it, sorry. And absence of any explanation from devs make me confused all about this nuclear power problem )

[Linosaurus]

15.0 patch notes said "Blueprint library: Allows for keeping players blueprints between individual game saves (..)".

Does this mean that anything I put into the blueprint library is supposed to show up in other save games automatically? Because I'm not sure how to get it to work.

[Wakaba-chan]

15.0 patch notes said "Blueprint library: Allows for keeping players blueprints between individual game saves (..)".

Does this mean that anything I put into the blueprint library is supposed to show up in other save games automatically? Because I'm not sure how to get it to work.

Just try to drag your blueprint/blueprint book to the right part of blueprints window.

[Greybeard_LXI]

Can someone explain where to find or read all of the rates at which things are consumed/produced?

For example, someone was trying to calculate how many steam engines and boilers needed to power 50 assembly machines, someone typically chimes in with "that's easy... a steam engine generates X and an assembly machine uses Y, and boilers use Z liters of water per second.."

Where do you find X Y and Z from? Is it just people reading the production/consumption screens in-game?

thanks

That's the only way I know it can be done.

Some people already looked at the screens in game and copied the information to the wiki. If you use the wiki you want to make sure you are looking at information for the version you are playing. I do not know if it has been updated to 0.15 yet.

[Greybeard_LXI]

Do we in 15 still need many pumps per pipe? I saw it pumps more but the fluid values are all off so i wonder if we still need up to 5 Pumps for a single pipe?

I haven't been playing as long as you have, but I have never used any pumps in my pipes. But all my pipes have been short. I used barrels for long distances.

The question requires knowing how long the pipe is and how much pressure drop each pipe section causes. Then you can calculate how often you need a pump.

Sorry I can't give a better answer.

[Linosaurus]

Just try to drag your blueprint/blueprint book to the right part of blueprints window.

Oh thanks a lot, I shall try this.

[Moo Rhy]

Real world power generation can be broken into base, load-following and renewable. With this nuclear behavior the devs have now given us all three types - nuclear = base, Coal/Steam = load following and solar = renewable. To me this is ideal, the nuclear isn't a drop-in replacement for an existing power generator - it complements them thus expanding the game rather than just superseding.

Thank you for this idea! Such classification really make sense.
But does it really going work like real world reactors? Doesn't control rods make fuel to decay slowly? I mean, control rods are the things that controlling heating process of fuel rods -> making reaction slower -> making fuel to decay slower. Am I wrong somewhere? (I really don't know much about it, sorry. And absence of any explanation from devs make me confused all about this nuclear power problem )

I guess the devs put gameplay over realism. A real nuclear plant does not consume fuel when it is off. I think they made it like this to make you think about your electricity system a bit more. You have to try keep your nuclear power output constantly high to get the maximum efficiency. This means you should build your plant not too big. It should only cover the base load and/or use storage for the steam. Of course you can also try to balance out the demand and make it following the available power.

[Claudius1729]

Is there a list of all quality of life shortcuts and actions available in the game somewhere? Like the use of right/left shift/control drag/no-drag click.

Not just all the new 0.15 ones, but all of them.

[quyxkh]

Real world power generation can be broken into base, load-following and renewable. With this nuclear behavior the devs have now given us all three types - nuclear = base, Coal/Steam = load following and solar = renewable. To me this is ideal, the nuclear isn't a drop-in replacement for an existing power generator - it complements them thus expanding the game rather than just superseding.

Thank you for this idea! Such classification really make sense.
But does it really going work like real world reactors? Doesn't control rods make fuel to decay slowly? I mean, control rods are the things that controlling heating process of fuel rods -> making reaction slower -> making fuel to decay slower. Am I wrong somewhere? (I really don't know much about it, sorry. And absence of any explanation from devs make me confused all about this nuclear power problem )

I guess the devs put gameplay over realism. A real nuclear plant does not consume fuel when it is off. I think they made it like this to make you think about your electricity system a bit more. You have to try keep your nuclear power output constantly high to get the maximum efficiency. This means you should build your plant not too big. It should only cover the base load and/or use storage for the steam. Of course you can also try to balance out the demand and make it following the available power.

I wanted load-following and spent an afternoon digging in to how it really works. Turns out real load-following plants are 20+ times bigger than the Factorio ones, and they stagger fuel loading, and if you build equivalent capacity with Factorio nucs staggered loading can get you load-following _vastly_ better than real nucs can achieve. Plus, real nucs can't buffer to steam storage tanks. Real load-following can only be done twice a day, only on a schedule planned in advance, because the fuel needs to be prepared for it, only down to 25%ish output, only with extreme babysitting, it has to be done Very Slowly lest the mindwrenching temperature gradients crack your fuel cores and eventually even the plant itself.

[TimothySDev]

Not sure if this is a bug or a change in the way the boiler's work, but I'm having some difficulty with the boilers. I can't seem to get power if the boiler is oriented like this:

Screenshot

If I rotate it 90 degrees, pump the water into one of the sides, it works, but only for one of the steam engines.

Screenshot

I'll edit this post with the save shortly.

[daniel34]

Not sure if this is a bug or a change in the way the boiler's work, but I'm having some difficulty with the boilers. I can't seem to get power if the boiler is oriented like this:

I'll edit this post with the save shortly.

No need to add the save, this is intended behavior and not a bug. The boiler now passes water through without heating it, steam will only come out to one side.

You can find some new layouts for steam power around the forums, e.g. this thread: viewtopic.php?f=208&t=44523

The easiest solution is probably to add a row of boilers to the offshore pump, then have 2 steam engines for each boiler on the side on which steam comes out and run a coal belt on the other side of the boilers. (EDIT: as shown in the picture below posted by Mr. Tact)

[TimothySDev]

Ah! Makes sense, thanks!

[Mr. Tact]

Not sure if this is a bug or a change in the way the boiler's work, but I'm having some difficulty with the boilers. I can't seem to get power if the boiler is oriented like this:

If I rotate it 90 degrees, pump the water into one of the sides, it works, but only for one of the steam engines.

I'll edit this post with the save shortly.

This is how they work:

new boiler.jpg (137.54 KiB) Viewed 6760 times

[AndrewIRL]

Real world power generation can be broken into base, load-following and renewable. With this nuclear behavior the devs have now given us all three types - nuclear = base, Coal/Steam = load following and solar = renewable. To me this is ideal, the nuclear isn't a drop-in replacement for an existing power generator - it complements them thus expanding the game rather than just superseding.

Thank you for this idea! Such classification really make sense.
But does it really going work like real world reactors? Doesn't control rods make fuel to decay slowly? I mean, control rods are the things that controlling heating process of fuel rods -> making reaction slower -> making fuel to decay slower. Am I wrong somewhere? (I really don't know much about it, sorry. And absence of any explanation from devs make me confused all about this nuclear power problem )

I guess the devs put gameplay over realism. A real nuclear plant does not consume fuel when it is off. I think they made it like this to make you think about your electricity system a bit more. You have to try keep your nuclear power output constantly high to get the maximum efficiency. This means you should build your plant not too big. It should only cover the base load and/or use storage for the steam. Of course you can also try to balance out the demand and make it following the available power.

The devs achieved both gameplay and realism both. First generation power plants don't load follow and they run for years without being turned off. They are started up and controlled so that the heat is as steady as possible - the control systems do not take load into consideration at all, they only work to ensure maximum safety of the plant. Heating/cooling causes expansion/contraction slowly damaging the plant - so older nuclear plants don't do it.

Modern German and French powerplants absolutely do load follow but they don't get turned off completely in normal operation, AFAIK they only load follow to 50-100% power output (regulatory requirement, technically they may be able to exceed this).

NPP must be capable of a minimum daily load cycling operation between 50% and 100% Pr, with a rate of change of electric output of 3-5% Pr/minute.

https://www.oecd-nea.org/nea-news/2011/ ... wing-e.pdf

But you are crash landed on a planet alone, maybe you don't have the skills to make a state of the art modern load following nuclear power plant. Maybe you should be amazed that you can even make a simple one like the world's first nuclear plants and not have it melt down.

[Moo Rhy]

The devs achieved both gameplay and realism both. First generation power plants don't load follow and they run for years without being turned off. They are started up and controlled so that the heat is as steady as possible - the control systems do not take load into consideration at all, they only work to ensure maximum safety of the plant. Heating/cooling causes expansion/contraction slowly damaging the plant - so older nuclear plants don't do it.

Modern German and French powerplants absolutely do load follow but they don't get turned off completely in normal operation, AFAIK they only load follow to 50-100% power output (regulatory requirement, technically they may be able to exceed this).

As far as I know every plant is shut down once a year for a month to exchange some of the fuel rods and do maintance. But, yes, the other time of the year the should run constantly. "Modern" (the plants from the 70s and 80s) are able to reduce the power so far that they can be decoupled from the grid and only produce so much power that they supply themselves. This is done because nuclear plants need a long time to shut down and start again. In case of a blackout they can run through and help to reset the grid to normal state.

[Joman]

Hello
I try to develop concept of "Factory of everything" in my game.
Concept include multiple blocks of Factory - Requester chest and Passive provider chest.
All inserters and Provider Chests are connected with red wires for better management of resources.

I have encountered following problem:
When i set condition for inserter as barrels < 350 it stops at 117 barrels.
When i set it up for 400 it stops at 134
at 300 it stops at 100.

I assume that is stops at 1/3rd of set value. Can someone explain why?

Please note that it is factorio 14.0

[EDIT]
Problem solved - it appears that red circuit was connected to two roboports and somehow they limited that number to one-third of value.



please find attached screen:

Factorio1.png (977.03 KiB) Viewed 6624 times

[quyxkh]

Your condition is for the network signal, but you're showing a single chest. Connect the network to a combinator input or to a pole, what's the value on the network? Every output connected to the wire gets summed, devices with only outputs only show their outputs.

[t-lor]

This has been bugging me for a while.

I have a blueprint book.
I select a blueprint from it, place it . And then i deselect it using Q

And instead of going back to the book, it goes in my inventory.
SO every half hour im trashing a dozen blueprints.

Fairly sure there must way to not get it in my inventory ?

[Deadly-Bagel]

Rather than pulling blueprints out of the book, just pick up the book and use Shift+Scroll to cycle the blueprints.